Breach of Trust
by Takira
Summary: Hisoka reflects on the night that brought his life to an end...and the real reason he can no longer trust people.


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I hate these little heart-to-heart things, I really do; Tsuzuki does all the talking and I have to sit there like some rebellious child, like it's punishment and I didn't even _do_ anything. All right, maybe I said something impolite at the debriefing, and maybe I left the room before I was dismissed, but Tsuzuki does it all the time and gets away with it. I don't care how young I look--I'm getting sick of being treated like a naive little kid.

Once Tsuzuki pauses for breath, I relate that piece of information--hey, he asked me to be more communicative, fine--and that immediately sets him onto the "we're just trying to take care you" string of apologies, since apparently it's all his fault. Yeah, he's the root of all evil, apparently, though you sure wouldn't know it by looking at him. I swear he's managed to somehow blame himself for the fact that Muraki got to me in the first place; I know he does the same for all of Muraki's other victims. I wasn't any more or less special than his other toys.

Sometimes I have to wonder how many of them became shinigami. Then again, maybe I'm the only one who didn't fall in love with the unholy freak...I mean, besides Tsuzuki, but there are times when I ask myself if the only reason he hasn't is the fact that Muraki kills for him. If not for that...

I don't feel like thinking about that. What's Tsuzuki on about now? Oh, yes, why can't I trust people. He thinks he knows why, they all do, and they all think the same thing. I don't know who told Tsuzuki whatever they did about my family, but obviously he didn't get the full story. Everyone in the stupid department probably knows by now what Muraki did to me, and that's just fine. Why should I care that a bunch of dead strangers have been trying to imagine what I looked like naked with that psychotic bloodstained fuck of a man touching my...touching...

...but that wasn't the worst of it.

It was a quiet night. There was never that much activity that far out in the country, and I'd been sleeping in my father's house for a change, since I'd been a good boy and hadn't done anything frightening for a couple of days; and, of course, once I'd gotten permission to, I couldn't sleep in there. It felt more natural to be in the cell, and that thought put me in a mood to get some fresh air, just to move around. I dunno...to prove that the house was different than the cell because I could leave and come back, or something.

What I found was...there was something about it a little too surreal to accept, especially since the man under the tree was holding her as only a husband should hold a woman. For a moment, I thought he _was_ her husband, but father's hair didn't shine like that, and he didn't wear glasses to reflect the red moonlight, and...well. To the best of my knowledge he didn't wander out at night to stab people, but then again, I didn't know him all that well.

I was thirteen. When you're thirteen and it's past midnight and the stars are gone, and the moonlight is just enough for you to watch your mother being bled to death, I don't care how tough you are--you don't think about saving her, and you don't think about vengeance. You panic and run like the stupid sheltered little brat you are, because you don't know what else to do; and when he chases you, all you can do is trip over your own clothes and shout for help.

I don't even know how long it took him to strip me as I ran, chasing after me and grabbing at bits of my robe like it was some lovers' game. When he got tired of that, it was time to drag me back to the tree and bind my wrists while Kasane looked on through dull blood-scummed eyes; and I thrashed and shouted and now that I think of it, that probably pleased him beyond all reason.

I was thirteen, and no one had purposely touched my skin since I was five years old. I didn't take it like a man. I didn't know how. When he cut me, I screamed like a child. When he pierced and tore me, I shrieked for him to stop, for someone please to make him stop--and he kissed me like I'd said the sweetest thing to him, and let me scream my throat raw.

No one came. I know we were close enough to father's house for him to have heard...and no one came.

I don't know how many hours it went on. He used me, pushing waves of his dark senses into and through my soul until I fell unconscious, and for all I know my limp body served his purposes until dawn. I didn't wake until the sun was nearly up, and father was shaking me: panicked that I was dead, right? At least a little concerned that his heir looked like a madman's sketchpad? No. He'd found his wife's body first, and was demanding to know if I'd killed her.

..._if I'd killed her_.

My throat had damned near swollen itself shut by then, and I didn't much feel like answering him anyhow, so I just lay there and waited for him to go away--eventually he did, dragging my mother's body with him. I found out later that he told the servants she'd drowned herself in that stupid little pond. He didn't even tell the villagers that she'd died. I don't know how long he was able to keep that up, because by that point I was dying. He visited me a couple of times in the hospital when I was awake, and never said a word. Never once apologized, never once explained...never even asked me what had happened, though by that point I couldn't remember anymore. To this day he probably thinks I killed her--if he's still alive now--and I can honestly say that I don't give a shit; blood meant more to Muraki than it ever did to him.

...great. Now Tsuzuki's worried because I seem "distant". Part of me wants to tell him why, to throw it all in his face and see if maybe he'll be the one person who could understand--but it would hurt him. He hurts for other people, not in the way I do, but by choice, and...and he didn't want to tell me about his past, either. So...I guess we're just not that close yet. I don't know. I've never had a friend before--or whatever he is. Better to play it safe for now; better to protect him from the wretched truth of the whole debacle.

It wasn't just the rape, or the curse. Muraki is a twisted, demented fucked-up excuse for a human being...but in a way, he's more human than Tsuzuki will or should ever be. Muraki and people like my father, they're the rule--Tsuzuki's the exception, and while I'll tell him he's human when he needs to hear it, he's too good to be human.

Okay, he's getting really anxious now, it's time to cut it off; with Tsuzuki, that just means mentioning the new ice cream shop in some city or another on Earth, and he squeals and bounces and runs off, knowing I'll follow. Maybe it's cruel to distract him like that, but it always works; you'd think he'd learn, or something. He's like a little kid...

I jog after him, aware that it probably looks pathetic for me to follow him around like a puppy, but what do I care. When Muraki decided to take back his puppet for one more round, Tsuzuki noticed that I was gone. He searched for me, and found the trap waiting...and he came for me. I don't deserve that, and I don't deserve him as anything he is to me, but I'm just bad enough not to want to give it up.

I'm only human, after all.

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End file.
